Making Marionettes

by C. Edmund Rossbach

Excerpt

With interest in an art comes a desire to participate in that art. So it is that when visitors, young and old, crowd back stage after a performance, the inevitable question is asked, How do you learn to make puppets? The inquirer's in ability to do satisfactory work unguided, and his consequent confusion, necessarily result in his prompt loss of interest and desire to participate in this most fascinating occupation. After one has constructed and operated a few marionettes, he will receive boundless pleasure from attempting new and clever features, but unless he is of the rather experimental turn of mind, he will never surmount, unguided, the first marionette.

It is my hope that through these drawings and explanations, the more mature novice may sustain his interest and enjoy puppetry, and that those already acquainted with marionettes may perhaps receive new suggestions and aids.